


Locked Doors

by Valaxiom



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memories, Nightmares, No Smut, Post-Season 10, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Season 11, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Washington needs a hug, only fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7392811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valaxiom/pseuds/Valaxiom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Former Freelancer Agent Washington is fine. Completely fine. Sure, he doesn't sleep much, and he's a paranoid mess with serious trust issues, but as he keeps telling his team, he's fine. Wash is completely capable of handling himself. </p>
<p>It's hard for Tucker and Caboose to believe that though, when he keeps screaming at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked Doors

**Author's Note:**

> I love Red vs Blue, and I love Wash. His character is fascinating because it changes so much throughout the series, from naive Caboose-with-a-functioning-frontal-lobe to grumpy disillusioned asshole to Team Dad. I might leave this as a oneshot, or make it into a series- depends on if people like it!

Memory is the key.

Wash was getting sick of having that phrase echo through his mind. No matter how many laps he ran or how little sleep he got or how much coffee he drank, the memories remained. There was-

_Carolina, laughing at something York had said, looking happy-_

_C.T., playing monopoly with him and North and South in the common room-_

_Maine, taking a sniper shot meant for Carolina-_

_Allison, leaving without saying goodbye-_

Wash shook his head. That last one wasn’t his. For all that he claimed to be okay, the splinters of another life that Epsilon had left behind after being removed still hurt. The life and times of Leonard Church were hard to separate from his own at first, but Wash had had lots of practice over the years. The best hints he’d found for identifying memories that he’d never lived through involved names and places that he didn’t recognize, or knew that he shouldn’t recognize. Allison’s name was always a dead giveaway that Epsilon had been involved.

Poor Beta. She’d been doomed from the start, created out of loss and longing and guilt and pain. Allison’s death had lived so heavily in the Director’s mind that her failure to return and her failure to win had become some of Beta’s principle character traits. When she’d been created alongside the Alpha, as a mistake, she’d become the inspiration for Project Freelancer. Splitting AI had suddenly become a tangible possibility, and to Leonard Church, the means had justified the ends.

Even if those means involved torturing his own psyche into developing split personalities. Even if they involved using people as chess pieces. Even if they involved betrayal and blackmail and murder and lies.

The blood of all the Freelancers was on Leonard Church’s hands. The man’s death didn’t change that; Wash had hoped that it would bring him closure. Carolina had told him how Director Church had died, and for all that he claimed he was able to let go, part of Wash was still pissed that he hadn’t been able to hold a gun to the head of the man who’d been responsible for the deaths of his friends. His _family_. Wash wished he was able to forgive and forget, but even as a kid he’d always been one to hold a nasty grudge, and thanks to Epsilon, forgetting anything was a luxury that he was no longer able to partake in.

Day to day, Wash was fine. He’d yell at Tucker, stop Caboose from committing manslaughter, and plan ridiculous ways to keep the Reds in line. They may have all been complete jackasses, but when things got bad, Wash had a team to back him up. Even stranded on a planet in the middle of nowhere, with no radio or real plans, Wash felt better than he had in years. He wasn’t left alone with his thoughts to dwell and sulk because there was always something that needed his attention.

Being an attack dog for Project Freelancer hadn’t been great for his already-wobbly mental stability. Epsilon’s meltdown and suicide inside Washington’s brain had caused a psychotic breakdown, one that he was still feeling the aftermath of. He’d spent years plotting revenge against Project Freelancer, even as he played the good, obedient soldier. By the time he’d joined up with the Reds and Blues, Wash had felt like an empty shell, with no real goal aside from revenge, and no real prospects aside from a vague hope for a quick death.

The nightmares were the worst part, but Wash had found that with enough hours awake, all he’d see when his head finally hit the pillow was darkness. It didn’t last for long, of course. It never did. He’d wake up screaming after a couple restless hours. At first, Wash had tried to hide his nightmares from the others, but he gave up after Tucker woke him up for the third time in a week and told him to “quit screaming bloody murder,” because he needed his “beauty sleep.” The fact that their barracks were one room with three sleeping rolls in it made his insomnia obvious.

They tried to help as best they could. Tucker searched up strategies for healthy sleeping, none of which did anything for Wash, but he appreciated the sentiment.

Caboose had tried to make him a mug of warm milk and almost set fire to the entire base.

Even the Reds tried to help, in their various clumsy ways.

Donut lent Wash a lacy pink sleep mask with huge cartoon eyes stitched onto it. Wash thanked him politely, then immediately hid the thing beneath the rest of his clothes and desperately hoped that Tucker would never see it. 

Grif and Simmons launched all of the Reds’ supplies of herbal teas at their base with a rudimentary catapult, along with a note saying “git gud, blue losers”.

Even Sarge awkwardly tried to help, cornering Wash and explaining about how common PTSD was in ex-Soldiers. The explanation eventually devolved into Sarge defensively insisting that he did not have PTSD, and that the leader of the Red Team was the most well-adjusted and sane individual at the crash site.

Wash was skeptical, but at least Sarge wasn’t keeping his team awake at night because he couldn’t stop screaming.

After a while, Tucker and Caboose got used to waking him up just before the nightmares really hit. They’d learned to recognise the instant when uneasy tossing and turning was about to turn into insane flailing, and Tucker would make Caboose wake him up (Wash was always a bit disoriented after being woken up, and after a couple bloodied noses, Tucker had decided that Caboose’s ridiculous strength could be put to good use in this situation).  Wash would never admit it, but it was a relief to wake up to Tucker bitching and Caboose not-so-gently shaking his shoulder. Or hugging him, if Wash had gone on autopilot and started trying to punch his assailants. Caboose was damn near invincible, and Wash couldn’t have left a mark on him if he tried.

Sometimes he’d even fall back asleep after his limbs stopped shaking from the adrenaline. Caboose and Tucker would arrange the sleeping bags so that Wash was in the middle, and it was almost embarrassing that he took that much comfort just from being aware of other people nearby, their steady heartbeats and calm breathing filling in the silence and distracting him from his memories.

Wash would still force himself to stay awake for days at a time, but at least now he knew that he could fall asleep and be woken up before the nightmares hit.

There were slip-ups, of course. One time, he was out on patrol and sat down to take a drink of water. He must have nodded off, because he woke up to a dark sky with his undersuit soaked in sweat. His throat was hoarse, probably from screaming. Images he’d tried hard to suppress-

_North lying in the rubble, dead, Theta stolen-_

_York with a cracked visor, lying on the training room floor-_

_Staring up at the Meta, a shadow of his friend, as he bleeds out in the snow-_

_A little girl with red hair, asking where her mother is-_

They were fresh in his mind, and they preoccupied him.

He staggered back into the base to find Tucker freaking out. He’d been organizing search crews and seemed genuinely worried. The Reds were creating chaos, as usual. Caboose nearly broke his ribs by hugging him, and Tucker kept calling him a jackass, but when he saw how haunted Wash’s face was, he shooed all the Reds back to their base and sent Caboose to find some tea.

Tucker didn’t ask any questions. He bullied Wash into changing out of his sweat-soaked suit and taking a shower, and when Wash emerged from the barracks in sweatpants and t-shirt, he found the common area full of blankets and smelling of popcorn. Tucker had managed to set up an ancient blu-ray player that they’d scavenged earlier from the wreck of the ship, and the three of them spent the next several hours watching Star Wars (episodes 10, 11, and 12, even though Wash thought that episodes 16, 17, and 18 were the best trilogy).

Wash fell asleep on the squishy couch with his head on Tucker’s shoulder, even as Caboose snored loudly in his ear. He didn’t dream.

Memory may have been the key, but some doors were allowed to stay locked.

 


End file.
